Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in the House today. I believe it is likely I will be closing this debate, and a momentous one it is.

These are not perfunctory. We often issue our best wishes to fellow members in this House for various things, but to my hon. colleague, let me say from the bottom of my heart, we pray for a miracle and we wish him our best. Even though I will not be voting for his legislation, I do think he will have the satisfaction of seeing it pass the House of Commons at least, if not the Senate as well.

A fair number of my colleagues have stated, and I will not restate to any great degree, the issues we have with the process of this. We understand the reasons and are somewhat sympathetic. One of the things we must understand is that we hold this office on behalf of Canadians, and therefore we have the duty to speak on their behalf, to speak for all viewpoints in this country, the viewpoints that we represent in this House. That is the reason I am rising here today.

There are many reasons that have been stated as to why we should not support this legislation. They include attachment to symbols, the history, the possibility that “thy sons command” was a reference, looking forward to possibly some military engagements our country would have been involved in, going forward.

However, for me, the reason that I will be opposing this legislation is a very simple one. If I vote for this legislation and the rationale has been made that it is discriminatory, I would then be accepting that Canada had been, in its words, discriminatory for the last roughly 100 years.

It is my understanding that the reason the lyrics were changed, and the grandson of the author was going to change it, was not for any particular great issue, etc., but for poetic reasons, to make things much more easier to flow, to go forward. It is what poets do.

We think of how the French version of our anthem talks about bearing a cross, carrying a sword, flowers on the head. Canada is not a person, but poetic language also includes that. This is effectively a Victorian poem. The language used is period language, and that is one thing that I think needs to be understood, and was understood clearly by the people at the time. Symbolism allows us a little more flexibility.

The second thing, and this one puzzles and surprises me, and perhaps because the way I was educated was a little different, is that people cannot understand or recognize that historically the word “sons” in English has not necessarily been a term used purely to refer to the male gender. There are many illustrations and the historian who testified at committee pointed this out. It is a term that is often used for the broader encompassment of all people. The author referenced the sons of Jacob, a phrase that is used in various poetic songs and other things of that nature coming from the King James version of the Bible and other periods.

I do understand Shakespearean language. King James language is not as common now as it used to be, but that is the intent, that is the understanding of the language going in. I think we actually do owe a certain degree of respect to the people who have understood that it was inclusive of everyone, going forward.

If I thought this was discriminatory, excluding half of our population, I could support that. I think there are some changes that need to be made from time to time to various symbols to understand and to broaden. I do not see this change bringing my daughter, my wife, my mother in, because I saw them brought in under the old terms.

It is for those reasons, along with some of the reasons my colleague has stated, that I will be choosing to vote no on this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and again, God's blessing to my colleague.

Bradley Trost